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The St. Louis Post Dispatch calls Missouri’s special legislative session 
that just wrapped up a fiasco. We’ve written about this saga of a special session that started September 6 and was convened with the promise of helping spur the Show Me State’s economy. But from the Governor’s misguided support for eliminating a credit that keeps seniors and the disabled in their homes, to the debacle of a plan to make the St. Louis airport a futuristic hub for freight between China and the Midwest, this special session was doomed by a growing skepticism among the state’s lawmakers that tax giveaways for businesses will help grow the state’s languishing economy. Sensibly, many lawmakers refused to accept new tax breaks unless procedures (such as sunsets) were put in place to make sure these tax breaks actually work.
Despite having clear majorities in the Senate (26-8) and House (105-54), the state’s Republican lawmakers weren’t able to get much done, and it’s one of those times that stalemate was actually a good thing.
Photo of Missouri Capitol via David Shane Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0